Last Updated on February 17, 2024 by
7 AM, scent of fresh croissants. When I opened my eyes it took me a good 5 minutes to realise that nope, I wasn’t imagining that delicious scent. I was in France! Honestly, I didn’t have such a beautiful and peaceful wake-up since a long time and I couldn’t believe this magical moment happened on my first morning on the Côte d’Azur. For this, I have to give credit to La Malmaison, a little boutique hotel in the earth of Nice. I think that our trip wouldn’t be the same and without this lovely stay and you can discover why on this blog!
Table of Contents
La Malmaison on a glance
Ideally located at 7 minutes walk from the Promenade des Anglais and at less than 15 minutes from Old Nice, La Malmaison is the perfect place for exploring the capital of the Alpes-Marittimes. This fine boutique hotel is home of 46 lovely rooms, decorated in a chic Art Deco style, that makes feel guests like in a 1920′ movie set. Every aspect of the stay is curated in every detail. From the excellent customer service, the cleanness of the rooms to the wide selection of choices during breakfast. Guests at La Malmaison feel loved and nothing is more valuable when discovering a new place.
La Malmaison Boutique Hotel in Nice
In the sections below, you can discover more of La Malmaison and read about our experience.
Reception and Snack Bar
Reception and Check-in experience
Immediately after the entrance, guests will receive a warm welcome by the reception. Here the management team will help with the check-in, booking of services and information. During our arrival the reception was managed by Cristiana. She was very kind and gave us all the information we needed to get around Nice and be comfortable in our room.
In order to ensure a smooth check-in, La Malmaison will get in contact with their guest via email and ask them about their preferences, special requests and check-in details. During the morning or afternoon of the guests arrival, the reception will get in contact once again to ask about any last minute adjustments. In this regard, we got in touch with Cristiana during the morning of our arrival. Thanks to this service, we were able to ask if it was possible to leave the luggage before the check-in time. However, La Malmaison team went the extra mile and ensured that, instead of leaving just the luggage, our room was ready for us before the check in time.
I was very grateful to find our room ready. In fact, I was able to give the twins a little change directly in our room without the need of searching for a baby change nearby. Travelling with little children can be stressful at times and this special service granted us a less stressful arrival!
Snack Bar and Lounge
Warm lights and cosy environment characterises the lovely space of the Lounge and Snack bar. Here, guests can have a relaxing time while enjoying a drink or simply waiting for their room to be ready. The touch-free menu gives guests the opportunity to search for their drinks and snacks directly from their phones, ensuring an additional level of security against Covid in shared spaces.
Because our children are still in the phase “I want to touch everything”, we decided to avoid the lounge area (my fear was that a running little Christopher or Alex would break something valuable). However, we wanted to take advantage of our spacious terrace to have a drink there. You can still order this from the snack bar and it will be delivered to your door.
La Malmaison boutique hotel Rooms
La Malmaison offers 46 spacious rooms. These are divided into six different types according to the surface area:
- Double/Twin Superior Room
- Double/Twin Classic Room
- Triple Room
- Executive Room
- Deluxe Room
- Premium Room
The surface area of the Double, Triple, Executive and Deluxe rooms ranges between 20-25 square meters. Only the Premium room has a bigger space covering 35 square meters. All the rooms include air conditioning, free very high speed Wi-Fi, TV 4K 50”, international channels and free video on demand, safe and a welcome tray. Most rooms have also a balcony or a terrace where to enjoy the sunshine of the French Riviera.
The Deluxe and Premium room are equipped also with a Jacuzzi balneotherapy bathtub and a very spacious terrace with sunbeds.
Our Room
During our stay at La Malmaison we had a Deluxe Room. These type of rooms are perfect for families as they are very spacious. Moreover, despite we had also two cots for the twins, there was still a lot of space for moving around! The room included a spacious bathroom with a Jacuzzi and a very useful storage room for luggage, clothes etc. In this room was stored also some nice gym and yoga equipment at discretionary use of the guest. Unfortunately, I couldn’t take advantage of this in-room gym opportunity due to the children constantly running around, but I am sure this would be very appreciated by many guests.
Jacuzzi Time
Luckily for us, our twins sleep a couple of hours during the afternoon. So, I took advantage of the nap time to have some “me time”! The Jacuzzi on our bathroom was calling me since we arrived and the nap came at a perfect moment, allowing me to enjoy a relaxed bath! A glass of rosé and the scent of perfumed essential oils made this afternoon very special.
The Terrace
The terrace was one of the highlights of our room. Not only for the spectacular view over the city, with a close-up to the beautiful and historical Palace Meyerbeer, but also as an extra space for the kids to play (and the adults to relax). Indeed, children loved to run around the terrace and we enjoyed the Nicoise sunshine. Sunset time is particularly a good moment to enjoy the outdoor terrace. The sun is not too strong and the colours of the sky are simply spectacular.
We loved to have our aperitif on the terrace while Alex and Chris were playing around. We also tried a local liquor called “Pastis de Nice”. In terms of importance this can bee seen as the Limoncello for Sicilians. It wasn’t bad at all but way too strong for me, so I left it to Alessio!
Breakfast area
The breakfast area is located immediately after the lounge area on the ground floor. The breakfast buffet is served from 7 am to 10.30 am on weekdays and from 7 am to 11 am on weekends. This includes a wide variety of products from fresh French pastries to gourmet yogurts and savoury dishes for the lovers of English breakfast. There is also a great selection of warm and cold beverages, which includes also some lovely veggie drinks.
Our breakfast experience
As you know, I am a great fan of buffet breakfast. Not because I exaggerate with food (I am actually quite ordinary with my cappuccino and croissant) but I like the idea of having more choices in case I want to try something new. I loved having breakfast at La Malmaison and the scent of the fresh pastries was the most delicious thing in the morning I could smell from my room! The breakfast area was rich of products and everything looked very fresh. I loved particularly the pains au chocolat!
The only little problem we encountered during breakfast was the lack of baby chairs. Indeed, there was just one baby chair in the whole breakfast area. This meant that we had to choose between having breakfast with a little tornado on our lap (ergo ruining our breakfast experience), having breakfast one by one, or put him on a stroller while his brother was seating at the table with us. We chose the latter option but I found this quite odd for such an attentive place. Moreover, if another family would show up at breakfast contemporary to us this would surely create an embarrassing situation.
Nevertheless, in defence of the hotel, this wasn’t the first place lacking of baby chairs in Nice. Indeed, in many restaurants we visited during our stay they had just one chair or none at all. I suppose that, as opposed to the UK, where even the smallest café has at least 5 baby chairs, is not a popular thing in France. However, to improve their service and avoid unpleasant situations, it would be better for La Malmaison to have at least an additional baby chair!
Apart from this little inconvenience, everything was excellent!
Services
La Malmaison has an excellent concierge service that will make guest stay at the hotel more pleasant. Indeed, guests can request a room service 24/7, book special services and take advantage of the very useful concierge app to book services like taxi, reading newspapers or simply communicate with the reception. A full list of La Malmaison services is available here.
La Malmaison Boutique Hotel – practical info
How to reach La Malmaison from Nice Airport
You can find La Malmaison at 48, boulevard Victor Hugo – 06000 NICE. The airport is located just at 8 km from the hotel and you can reach it by car (18 mins) or by public transport. Just outside the airport, guest can take the tram line T2 towards Port Lympia and get off at the Alsace-Lorraine stop. Here there is an additional 3 minutes walk towards the hotel.
Check-in/Check-out time
The check- in time is from 15.00 pm and check-out time is by 11.00 am. However, guests can request an early check-in or late check-out. The reception is open 24h.
Contact
Email: contact@lamalmaisonnice.com
Telephone: +33 (0)4 93 87 62 56
Website: https://www.lamalmaisonnice.com/en/
This stay has been hosted by La Malmaison in Nice. All the opinions are, as always, my own.
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